JJ Andrews has been smiling his way through Arkansas’ preseason work, and now the freshman from the home state is about to get his first real run in a Razorbacks uniform.
Arkansas opens a four-game exhibition stretch Friday in Nassau, Bahamas, facing the Bahamian national team at 6 p.m. Central in the Bahamar Hoops Summer League. The trip gives John Calipari’s team a chance to get out of practice mode and into game action after about eight weeks of battling each other.
“I’m just looking forward to getting to know the guys on and off the court,” Andrews said. “I’m looking forward to winning some games, getting to play against another team because we’ve been playing against each other for about eight weeks.”
Calipari opened Thursday’s practice to media and nearly 400 traveling fans, a preview of a roster that is still trying to sort itself out before the real schedule arrives. Arkansas’ exhibition slate continues against Carleton University at 5 p.m.
Saturday, Toros del Valle at 6 p.m. Monday and Calgary University at 11 a.m.
Tuesday.
The opponents bring different backgrounds, but the setup is the same: Arkansas will play all four games under NCAA men’s basketball rules rather than FIBA rules. The Bahamian national team is not expected to be its first-choice group with NBA standouts, while Carleton and Calgary are Canadian universities that both reached the postseason last year, with Carleton entering as the defending national champion. Toros del Valle is a Colombian pro club that won its league title last season.
The results matter less than what Calipari and his staff can learn. Arkansas is expected to win each game comfortably, but the real value is in how a young roster starts to come together. Calipari said that plainly Monday.
“It’s a starting point,” Calipari said Monday.
This Arkansas team has eight freshmen and two transfers, and junior wing Billy Richmond is the only rotational returner from last season. That makes the Bahamas trip especially useful with three confirmed nonconference games against power-conference opponents waiting later on. With the SEC projected to be one of the nation’s strongest leagues, the Razorbacks need chemistry fast.
“You’re trying to figure out, and then you go down there and figure out,” Calipari said. “They've got lights on, and now you see…. There’s some guys that have really performed in practice, now let me see them in those situations.”
Calipari has used this kind of trip before. He took Kentucky to the Bahamas three times and Canada twice, and he has said those experiences helped his teams grow and get ready. The NCAA used to limit foreign trips to once every four years, but that rule has changed, allowing teams to make such trips every offseason.
Richmond said the summer has been all about energy and connection.
“The summer’s been good, just full of energy,” Richmond said last Tuesday. “Just building the chemistry….
Just going in and competing every day, that’s what we’re doing. Trying to get ready for the season.”
Andrews, Richmond, Cooper Bowser and Abdou Toure have all spoken about the same thing: getting on the floor against someone else and figuring out how this group fits together. Bowser said the team is ready for a new test.
“We’re itching to go against a team that doesn’t know our plays,” Bowser said. “A lot of guys will get their first college action wearing the Razorback uniform, myself included.”
That is the point of the trip for Arkansas. Not the scoreboard, but the snapshot it gets of where this group stands before the season starts. Nassau gives the Razorbacks a chance to see how far the chemistry has come and how much more work still needs to be done.
Toure put it simply.
“I’d say the biggest point of interest is getting our teamwork,” Toure said. “We have 12 guys, everybody could play. We’re just going to see how everybody does, get our team chemistry up.”
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